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Those "opinions" are heavily inflated by bots and other fake accounts. I've observed this behaviour around 2012 on Youtube comments, where the usual tinfoil nut
by BurningPenguin 5y ago
Those "opinions" are heavily inflated by bots and other fake accounts. I've observed this behaviour around 2012 on Youtube comments, where the usual tinfoil nutjobs kept running several accounts at once and artificially upvoted their fantasies and downvoted any criticism. It happened on multiple videos on very specific topics from respectable sources. Usually moon landing, 9/11 and so on. It's pretty much the same now on Twitter. It's just the scale that's different, and apparently also the professionalism behind it.
- alfiedotwtf 5y agoSure, but I think this also highlights something even worse - if Twitter becomes censorship free, how do you stop the bots? You can't by design!
- BurningPenguin 5y agoThat's the problem, yes. I fully agree with your point. Just wanted to add some observations. Every community needs some form of "censor", or as we called it back in the day: "moderator". Just to keep things civil. The only way to stop bots, or at least lessen their impact, would be to make verification via ID (passport, drivers license, etc) mandatory. But that opens up a whole other can of worms. Another thing i noticed is, that many people don't seem to know what "free speech" actually is. Maybe it's different in the US. I can only speak for the German version of it. It's to protect you from prosecution by the government. It is not a free ticket to attack others and it doesn't protect from criticism.
- josephcsible 5y agoI'd be perfectly happy to put up with the rampant bot problem forever if it meant the censorship problem went away forever. And don't pretend censorship is actually even an effective solution: remember that today we have a bot problem and a censorship problem.